Sketchbook Process: Before and After

There is something about altering my field sketches back in the studio that feels fundamentally dishonest to me. It’s probably an artefact of the way we were forced to keep sketchbooks in art school (one per subject, so the entire thing could easily be handed to a teacher to review), and life drawing was observed from life only and lord help you if you stuck anything else in there or continued to work on it from memory afterwards. Still, it has been a hard notion to shake. That I am currently working with a sketchbook practice that involves a blend of both field work and studio studies is something of a minor leap forward for me. It does occasionally make me ask myself at what point it stops being a “field sketch” and is just a drawing.

I’ve decided to share a before-and-after of what I consider a successful page in my field sketchbook. Some of my field sketch pages do, in fact, survive untouched, and some get a lot of work afterwards. I will also often work from reference photos I’ve taken in the field, because this sketchbook also serves as a nature journal for me, and I don’t always have time to draw in the field but still want to record my experiences.

I had a very short amount of time to both find and make what observations I could of this vagrant laughing gull, for it had the audacity to show up on a day that was jam-packed with un-skippable obligations (rare birds have a real knack for this). Thankfully, it was easy to find (lounging right beside the parking lot), so I could spend most of my limited time sketching.

In a half-hour I was able to do this rather unevenly-composed page. I observed the bird through the scope, but was standing, so when it was time to get the paint out I had some juggling to do. I was also able to take some decent reference photos. But soon enough time was up, and I had to leave.

But I didn’t want to leave the page as it was. So back in the studio I combed through my photos and got to work. I added more written notes, both of memories of the day and observations I made about the subject. I fixed the bill on the top sketch, added in a quick sketch of its brief time on the water, and developed the other two sketches further. Adding a strong sense of lighting really gave the sketch a feel of the atmosphere of the day.

Sometimes the reference photos I manage to get suggest a theme for study, and in this case I had a good series of a strong cast shadow morphing as the bird adjusted its head back and forth. So I started a new page focusing just on that aspect, and added one more of an overcast shot when the clouds had moved in front of the sun. The image at the top of the blog post features these head studies.

Here are the two pages I ended up with after my brief outing. I certainly spent longer working on it in studio than I did in the field. I’m quite happy with them and just try not to think too much about whether or not I’m cheating. Hope you enjoyed this little peek into my process.

-Missy